Large Market, Great Prospects
At the end of 2009 Internet users in China totaled to 384 million. According to some estimates (EMarketer Inc.) that number may grow even higher to 840 million by 2013. It’s almost three times bigger than the population of the US and that’s why worth fighting for. Besides some technical difficulties in indexing Chinese-language pages, the market is also threatened with numerous regulations and laws issued by the Chinese government. However, it is really very profitable and promising even more money and prospects.
Nowadays Google’s market share in China Internet market plunged to 30.9 percent in the first quarter. It is a significant fall as before the misunderstanding with the government it was 35.6 percent. Baidu’s share increased to a record 64 percent from 58.4, according to the research firm called Analysys. The growth of Baidu’s popularity was fostered by Google’s semi-exit from the market, as the company’s representatives stated. However, now Baidu’s officials denied the fact and stated that Google’s difficulties only marginally contributed to Baidu’s success.
But Baidu’s future is not that shining. It may face competition from other resources such as emerging Goso.cn. The new search engine is a joint effort by the People's Daily and people.com.cn. and like all other Chinese search engines, presents a complete clone of Google’s main page. Another competitor will be Tencent Holdings' Soso, which is working to expand the services provided by the company. Now it is going to imitate Google’s “latest results” section trying to develop real-time search results presenting major news iPhone Development. Taking into consideration the fact the company is going to buy Comsenz, China's leading social-software developer, it may become a real threat to Baidu’s market position.